THE WORLD’S store of digital content is now the equivalent of one full top-of-the-range iPod for every two people on the planet, following the explosion of social networking sites, internet-enabled mobile phones and government surveillance.
At 487 billion gigabytes, if the world’s rapidly-expanding digital content were printed and bound into books it would form a stack that would stretch from Earth to Pluto 10 times. As more people join the digital tribe – increasingly through internet-enabled mobile phones – the world’s digital output is increasing at such a rate that those stacks of books are rising quicker than Nasa’s fastest rocket.
The large files from digital cameras and the world’s burgeoning army of surveillance cameras account for a significant proportion of the digital universe. The rapid increase in so-called machine-to-machine communications has seen the number of individual digital creation events balloon despite the recession.
The digital universe is expected to double in size over the next 18 months, according to the latest research from technology consultancy IDC and sponsored by IT firm EMC, fuelled by a rise in the number of mobile phones. At the time of their first report in 2007, the pair reckoned the world’s digital content was 161 billion gigabytes.
About 70 per cent of the information in the digital universe is created by individuals and includes phone calls, e-mails, photos, online banking transactions or postings on social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter.
“Devices such as camera phones, and web 2.0 services such as social networking sites have created a nation of digital hoarders,” according to Mike Altendorf, managing director of EMC Consulting.
Companies are seeing digital storage needs increase as a result of tightening regulation following the financial meltdown last year. The amount of information that must be retained to comply with rules is expected to grow from 25 per cent of the digital universe last year to 35 per cent in 2012.
IDC/EMC estimate that the cost of the computers, networks and storage facilities that drive the digital universe is about $6 trillion. Add in medical equipment, entertainment and content creation and the figure is double that. – (Guardian service)